Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“You can admit it, I won’t tell,” she says.
I shake my head furiously, tearing off the paper towel and wiping coffee off the table and my chin. “No!” I finally get out. “That’s the last thing I want.”
“But the first thing you need,” Ana sits down beside me, palming her mug. Now her nails are white with flamingos painted on them. I have to wonder when she has the time to get them done and if she ever pokes a classmate’s eye out. I know she’s come dangerously close to me and that was before she was wearing the gel talons.
I give her my deadliest glare but it doesn’t do anything to her. At least with Blake I saw him flinch a few times and I was using it on him a lot. “No one is having sex. He’s still a pig. Maybe even worse than before.” I pause and in some ways wish I had nothing more to say. “But he’s not as stupid as he seems. At least, he’s good at ideas and plotting. And realistic characters. We’ll see if he can actually write.”
“I thought you’ve heard his stuff in class, no?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” I tell her truthfully. “I assumed it would be crap and turned off my ears.”
“See that’s why I had to leave my husband,” Ana says joyfully. “I couldn’t turn off my ears to his blah blah blah.” She makes a talking motion with her hand. “And I couldn’t turn off my ears to his ooooh, oooh, OOOOH!” And she’s now making loud, high-pitched orgasm sounds that only an animal could hear. She gives me a wry look when she’s done. “You know, because he was screwing our neighbor.”
I’ve heard the story a million times before. It explains so much about Ana, yet I know if I were in her shoes, I’d have trouble mustering half the joy and energy that she has.
“Anyway,” I tell her, “I don’t think it will be the end of the world. If I can just focus on the story and not him, then we’ll be okay.”
“Because you want to have sex with him.”
“Drop it,” I warn her, getting out of my chair. “Just because a guy is good-looking doesn’t mean that he’s my type.”
“Who is your type, then?”
That makes me pause. Alan’s face flashes into my head. Memories of us in California, staying at romantic vineyard hotels, us laughing, drunk as hell, going swimming past pool hours. It’s funny how every memory of us laughing and having fun and doing something exciting – dare I say sexual – are the ones that pop up the most, the ones I hold on to. And yet they only represent five per cent of the relationship. Even Disneyland was completely for me, he always went along willingly, having a fraction of the fun. That time I suggested having sex backstage of It’s a Small World, like Ross Gellar did? Not only did he not get the Friends reference, but he flat-out turned me down.
Then a new memory bursts into frame, the one of Blake last night in the library, taking off his jacket, the way his biceps popped beneath his T-shirt, how his forearms seemed so massive, almost rough, in the library’s austere environment. Like he knew how take charge of something, anything…me.
Nope, I tell myself adamantly. Nope, nope, not that.
Never that.
“Well?” Ana prods.
“Tom Hiddleston,” I tell her. “He’s my type.”
“Who? Is he your classmate?”
I laugh. “I wish. He’s a British actor. Loki, from Thor and The Avengers.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Oh, Amanda, you really are a nerd.” She pronounces the word like she’s proud to know what it means.
I shrug, learning long ago not to let that label bother me and making a mental note to never let her read my Reylo fanfic, nor my Benedict Cumberbatch erotica (in which, naturally, all the stories star me). “Then I’m a nerd who will know what she likes, wants, needs when she sees it. The moment I find someone like Tom Hiddleston, I’ll let you know.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Then I give you permission to hook me up to one of your dating sites.”
At that she starts tapping her fingers together at a rapid rate, her smile stretching across her face, making her cheekbones pop out and her eyes nearly disappear. “Oooooh, I can’t wait!”
Yikes. Is it too early to add whisky to my coffee?
I don’t hear from Blake that day, which is what we agreed upon. We’d both work on our first chapters by ourselves and then make plans to read them over and discuss. But when the rest of the day turns into the next day and the next and then suddenly it’s Sunday and I still haven’t heard from him, I’m getting worried.
I hate to pester him. No, I hate to even talk to him, but I don’t think I have a choice. Our class is tomorrow and the last thing I want is to go in there unprepared. Besides, I’ve written – and rewritten – my first chapter (which is technically chapter two, since his POV starts it off) a hundred times already and am itching for some feedback of any sort, even if it’s from him.